Modi inaugurates Partners' Forum 2018

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated the fourth Partners' Forum, an international conference organised to improve the health and well-being of women, children and adolescents, with about 1,500 participants from 85 countries.

Addressing the Forum, Modi said: "India was one of the first countries to advocate focused attention on adolescence and implement a full-fledged health promotion and prevention programme for adolescents."

He also said that "it is only partnerships between citizens, communities and countries that will get us to our goals".

"India stands ready to support its fellow countries in the march to achieving their development goals through skill building and training programmes, provision of affordable medicines and vaccines, knowledge transfers and exchange programmes."

Modi said that the countries have gathered to discuss ways to improve health and wellbeing of mothers and children as it "will determine the health of our tomorrow".

"We have achieved a lot of progress in the last few years and yet a lot remains to be done. From bigger budgets to better outcomes, and from mindset change to monitoring, there are a lot of interventions required," Modi added.

From India, Intensified Mission Indradhanush has been selected as one of the case studies under Quality, Equity and Dignity (QED) theme.

"I am pleased to note that India's immunisation programme, a subject close to my heart, is being featured as a success story in this forum. Under Mission Indradhaush, we reached 32.8 million children and 8.4 million pregnant women over the last three years.

"We have also increased the number of vaccines under the universal immunisation programme from seven to 12. Our vaccines now cover life threatening diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea," he said.

This is the second time India is hosting the Partners' Forum. The last one was held in 2010.

The two-day conference, organised by the Central government in association with the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), will conclude on Thursday.

The mission of PMNCH is to support the global health community to work successfully towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the health-related SDGs as articulated in the Strategy for Women's Children's and Adolescents' Health in support of 'Every Woman Every Child' (EWEC) movement, the Prime Minister's Office said.

The invited countries have been selected from across all regions and income levels and nations that are currently chairing key global and regional bodies, including G7, G20, BRICS, and others.

The programme of the Partners' Forum will be framed around the objectives of the Global Strategy of Survive - Thrive - Transform.

The Forum will also present and explore the findings of the 12 Success Factors case studies that showcase how countries are collaborating across sectors to improve women's, children's and adolescents' health

The case studies will be published in a special Partners' Forum edition of the BMJ (originally called British Medical Journal) and disseminated widely.

The Partners' Forum is a global health partnership launched in September 2005 to accelerate efforts to reduce child and maternal mortality, improve adolescent, child, newborn and maternal health.

The previous chapters were held in Johannesburg in South Africa in 2014, and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in 2007.